This
was a right hand of a murderer that was severed while the corpse was still
hanging from the gallows. It was then used as a charm or in black magic
practices after being magically perserved. It is also believed robbers often
used the hand when breaking into buildings and homes.

Preferably the hand was cut off during the eclipse of the moon. Afterwards
it was wrapped in a shroud, squeezed of blood and pickled for two weeks
in an earthenware jar with salt, long peppers and saltpeter. Then it was
either dried in an oven with vervain, an herb believed to be able to ward
off demands, or laid out to dry in the sun, desirably in the hot dog days
of August.

When the hand was ready, candles were fitted on it between the fingers.
These were called the "dead man's candles" were made from another
murderer's fat, with the wick being made from his hair.

Another method of curing the severed and dried hand was dip it in wax.
After this process the fingers themselves could be lit.

The hand with burning candles or fingers was shocking when coming at
people. It froze them in their tracks and rendered them speechless. Burglars
lit the hand before entering homes. A warning sign was that if the thumb
would not light it meant there was someone in the house who could not be
charmed or made afraid. It was believed once the hand was lit nothing but
milk could extinguish it.

Homeowners attempted to fight back. To combat the hand of glory all sorts
of ointments were smeared on the thresholds. The compositions of these various
ointments consisted of everything from the blood of screech owls, the fat
of white hens, or the bowl of black cats. Perhaps these concoctions worked
if they were slimy enough to trip up the burglars.

The hand of glory was linked to witches during the witch-hunt period.
There are two noted incidences. One, in 1588, of two German women, Nichel
and Bessers, that were accused of witchcraft and exhuming corpses. They
admitted poisoning helpless people after lighting the hands of glory to
immobilize them. John Fian, after being severely tortured during his witch
trial in Scotland in 1590, confessed to using a hand of glory to break into
a church where he performed a ceremony to the devil.

The term the "hand of glory" is believed to be derived from
the French "main de glorie" or "mandrogore" and be related
to the legends of the mandrake. The mandrake plant was believed to grow
under the gallows of the hanged man.

Belief in the efficacy of the Hand of Glory persisted as late as 1831
in Ireland. It is described or mentioned in the chapter of "The Folk-lore
of the Hand" in "The Hand of Destiny" by C. J. S. Thompson,
London, 1932. The belief in the Hand of Glory was the subject of "The
Nurses Story" one of the "Ingoldsby Legends" of Thomas
Ingoldsby (Rev. Richard Braham, 1837).A.G.H.